1. Field of the Invention
The present disclosure relates to a fiber bundle guide for guiding a flat fiber bundle in which a plurality of fibers are gathered.
2. Description of the Related Art
The following description of related art sets forth the inventor's knowledge of related art and certain problems therein and should not be construed as an admission of knowledge in the prior art.
In general, when winding a thread to a winding apparatus, a guide is arranged on a traveling path of a thread so that the thread is guided to the winding apparatus by the guide. The guide is provided with a cylindrical guide roller having flanges formed on both circumferential side edges thereof, and a support member which supports the guide roller rotatably in a circumferential direction. With a thread put on a circumferential surface of the guide roller, the guide roller guides the thread towards the winding apparatus while rotating in response to the traveling of the thread with the support member as a rotational axis (see, e.g., Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. H7-237814).
By the way, recently, as represented by a carbon fiber bundle, it is performed to wind a flat fiber bundle in which a plurality of fibers are gathered with a winding apparatus. Also for this flat fiber bundle, it is required to provide a guide for guiding the fiber bundle, but a conventional guide as mentioned above has been applied as it is.
However, when a conventional guide is applied to a flat fiber bundle as it is, the following problems occur. Namely, a flat fiber bundle is constituted by gathering a plurality of fibers into a flat shape and therefore the tensile force differs depending on the portion of the fiber bundle, causing a variation of tensile forces as a whole. For this reason, when the fiber bundle is traveling along the circumferential surface of the guide roller, the fiber bundle gradually shifts to the flange side of the guide roller inadvertently due to the variation of tensile forces. This causes a contact of the fiber bundle to the flange, resulting in, e.g., shrinking or bending of the fiber bundle, which in turn causes twisting of the fiber bundle. For this reason, the fiber bundle fed from the guide roller is sent to a winding apparatus with the twists remained, which causes a problem that the fiber bundle is not wound accurately by the winding apparatus.
The description herein of advantages and disadvantages of various features, embodiments, methods, and apparatus disclosed in other publications is in no way intended to limit the present invention. For example, certain features of the described embodiments of the invention may be capable of overcoming certain disadvantages and/or providing certain advantages, such as, e.g., disadvantages and/or advantages discussed herein, while retaining some or all of the features, embodiments, methods, and apparatus disclosed therein.